New bill tackles detention center transparency

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Welcome back to Capitol Confidential! Happy Wednesday. 

Fun fact for my fellow Sierra Nevada lovers: 157 years ago this week John Muir first began writing about his 1869 stay in and around Yosemite Valley. Those writings would later be published into “My First Summer in the Sierra” in 1911. 

It may be useful to hold on to some of those wistful and bucolic scenes in preparation for August. One lawmaker told me this week he’s already bracing for the “marathon” of appropriations committee hearings and floor votes next month, with dozens of bills hurtling toward the Aug. 31 deadline.

As the Trump administration continues to double down on its expansive immigration detention policies that have resulted in the detention of thousands across the country – as well as an unprecedented number of deaths – California legislators are advancing several bills seeking to increase accountability and oversight of the privately run detention centers. 

One, SB423, introduced mid-June, zeroes in on how local law enforcement is handling reports of mistreatment and abuse within these centers — an issue that immigrant rights advocates warn is widely misunderstood and opaque. 

The bill, authored by Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, would require local agencies to disclose recordings and related records of 911 calls from or concerning private detention facilities. It would amend the California Public Records Act to prevent law enforcement from claiming certain exemptions that they say preclude them from releasing the records. 

Two of the bill’s cosponsors, the First Amendment Coalition and advocacy group Immigrant Defense Advocates, pointed to a recent investigation by CalMatters as an impetus for the legislation. The outlet reported local law enforcement in San Diego entered an agreement with the private operator of the Otay Mesa immigration detention center that gave the warden, not law enforcement, the authority to decide whether to investigate rape allegations at the facility.  

In a June 30 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzalez said the reports of unsafe conditions at the facilities “underscore the need for greater transparency.”

In multiple media investigations and inquiries by immigrant rights and accountability groups over the past few years, requests to law enforcement for 911 calls from the detention facilities have been difficult or impossible to obtain. 

Ginny LaRoe, advocacy director at the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for press freedom and government accountability, said she can recount multiple instances of journalists unable to access the records in the past two years. 

Under state law, the calls are public records. But there are some exceptions, and supporters of SB423 say some local law enforcement has been interpreting those too broadly. 

Hamid Yazdan Panah, advocacy director at Immigrant Defense Advocates, said an inability to access the records offers an incomplete picture of not only the conditions inside the state’s eight detention facilities, but also of how local law enforcement agencies are responding to calls for help.

“With access to these records, accountability can come with that,” Panah said. “I think the general public is also not really informed of what is going on in these facilities day in and day out.”

A recent Human Rights Watch report found 52 people died in ICE custody across the country between Jan. 20, 2025 to June 4, 2026. Four of those were in California facilities. An April investigation by the Chronicle found that many of the deaths were a result of medical neglect and delays in providing treatment.

SB423 would still require law enforcement agencies to redact the name or identifying information of individuals involved in or victim of a crime, and would allow the withholding of records that would interfere with an active investigation. The bill does not currently have any stated opposition. 

“We don't actually have a clear picture of how often people are able to call 911, and what happens when they do call,” said Lisa Knox, program director at California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, who spoke in support of the bill. 

“We have encountered a lot of people in detention who have not received necessary medical care and who have been victims of retaliation, including sexually abusive pat downs, excessive use of force, and things that, in our opinion, rise to potentially criminal acts,” Knox said, adding that calling 911 could be some detainees’ “only recourse.”

Hamstrung by the federal government’s detention agenda and its contracts with private operators running the facilities, California has pushed back by advancing efforts to tighten oversight. But even that push has been rife with legal setbacks and tussles between state and federal leaders. 

In 2017 during the first Trump administration, legislators passed AB103, an expansive check on the facilities. It requires the Department of Justice to review and report on the conditions at immigration detention facilities. SB1399, authored by Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, and sponsored by Attorney General Rob Bonta, would extend the regular inspections of the facilities past its 2027 sunset date. 

In the most recent May DOJ report on the facilities, inspectors concluded that the detention centers had “substandard conditions that fail to meet ICE’s own detention standards,” and recorded an “unprecedented surge” in the number of detainees. Between 2023 and 2025, the number of detainees across seven active sites grew approximately 162 percent, from 2,303 to 6,028, attributing the increase to the Trump administration’s immigration detention policies. 

It’s been a little more than two weeks since the Department of Motor Vehicles announced thousands of Californians would need to retake the knowledge portion of their driver test, citing, vaguely, “irregularities.” 

Several days later, the agency clarified to the Chronicle that at least some portion of the 11,000 flagged tests were invalidated because of suspected cheating. If that leaves you wanting more information, well, you’re not alone. 

The two ranking members of the Senate Transportation Committee, state Sens. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, and Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), sent letters to the DMV asking for more information. Earlier this week, the two lawmakers indicated they were getting impatient with the lack of response, threatening the possibility of a public hearing. Then late Monday, both senators received a letter from the DMV’s director, Steve Gordon, dated the preceding Friday. 

“Through routine integrity monitoring and investigative review, DMV analyzed multiple sources of testing information and identified patterns of activity that, when evaluated collectively, indicated a  significant likelihood that certain knowledge examinations had been compromised,” the letter said. 

While it was a response, it failed to answer some of the lawmaker’s key questions, which included asking for the specific "irregularities" they found, and whether the 11,000 tests were specific to a particular testing period, field office, examiner, vendor or geographic region.

“Californians deserve clear answers,” Strickland said in a statement to the Chronicle on Tuesday. “When a state agency alleges widespread cheating involving thousands of drivers, it has a responsibility to explain how those conclusions were reached and what actions will be taken to protect the integrity of the testing process going forward, and to ensure these problems don’t happen again.”

In a phone call just minutes before the DMV sent the letter to Cortese, the senator said he took issue with the lack of information provided in the original notices sent to drivers. 

Gordon said in the letter the agency will continue to share information about the potential cheating, but said public disclosure of “specific investigative techniques, evidentiary thresholds, or analytical methodologies” would risk compromising ongoing investigations. 

Questions? Thoughts? Interesting tidbits to share? Reach out at [email protected], and follow me on X, @KathrynPlmr.